Kings extend series with win over Sharks

Los Angeles Kings center Tyler Toffoli, center, celebrates with teammates Willie Mitchell (33) and Tanner Pearson (70) after scoring against the San Jose Sharks during the second period in Game 4 of an NHL hockey first-round playoff series at Staples Center in Los Angeles on Thursday, April, 24 2014.
(Keith Birmingham Pasadena Star-News)

Down but defiant, the Kings went back to work Thursday night for perhaps the last time at Staples Center this season. They said all the right things after doing almost none of them while failing behind the more opportunistic San Jose Sharks three games to none.

“We have to win one game,” forward Mike Richards said 24 hours earlier. “We can’t worry about winning four games all at once. We should be comfortable playing in Staples Center against San Jose. We’ve played against them lots and we’ve had success against them in our building lots.

“We can’t look ahead to Game 5 without winning Game 4.”

The Kings handled their business with a 6-3 series-extending victory over the Sharks, forcing a Game 5 in the best-of-7 series on Saturday at the SAP Center in San Jose. A subtle change in the Kings’ lines made a huge difference as they trimmed their series deficit to 3-1 with their best game yet.

Kings coach Darryl Sutter dropped Justin Williams from the top line and replaced him with Dustin Brown, who joined Anze Kopitar and Marian Gaborik. Williams joined Jarret Stoll and Dwight King. The moves gave the Kings’ top two lines a more physical presence.

But more to the point, it resulted in more goals for the Kings.

Williams scored his first two goals of the playoffs and Gaborik recorded his second and third of the postseason. Brown set up Gaborik’s first goal, only 4 minutes, 8 seconds into the game. Kopitar assisted on the second one, which gave the Kings a 5-2 lead 34 seconds into the third period.

San Jose coach Todd McLellan replaced Antti Niemi with Alex Stalock after Gaborik’s second goal, preferring to spare his No. 1 goaltender from further damage with Game 5 now necessary. Niemi gave up five goals on 26 shots on goal.

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Williams broke a 2-all tie with a goal at 16:07 of the second and Tyler Toffoli made it 4-2 at 19:01. James Sheppard, Long Beach native Matt Nieto and Joe Pavelski scored for the Sharks, who sought to become the second team after the Montreal Canadiens to advance.

San Jose played in the early going as if on a mission to end the series quickly and avoid the sort of prolonged battles that emerged in the other Western Conference series. The winner of the Sharks-Kings series will face the victor in the Ducks-Dallas Stars series, deadlocked at two games apiece.

The two series involving Central Division teams also appeared to be destined for lengthy series. The defending Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks are tied with the St. Louis Blues 2-2, and the Minnesota Wild evened their series with the Colorado Avalanche at 2-all.

The Kings tried to keep the series going for as long as possible, fully aware that only three teams in Stanley Cup playoff history have rallied from a three-games-to-none deficit to win a best-of-7 series. Richards and Jeff Carter played on one of them, the 2010 Philadelphia Flyers.

The Flyers rallied to beat the Boston Bruins and went on to fall to the Blackhawks in the Stanley Cup Final. The other teams were the 1975 New York Islanders, who rallied to beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, and the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs, who defeated the Detroit Red Wings.

“All of our attention should be on Game 4,” Richards said. “We’ve won four games in a row before and when we were playing those games we weren’t looking ahead to the next one. We were just focused on the team that we were playing that right. We just have to be ready for (Thursday) night.”